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When you close a Metro application in Windows 8, its more like it gets paused, rather than completely closes. This allows us to quickly switch between applications (think “resume”) without having to launch the application from scratch. Here’s how we can delete our Metro application history as well as exit any applications running in the background.

For years, users have wondered why on earth Microsoft wouldn’t make the taskbar customizable and usable across multiple monitors. The release of Windows 8 won’t tell us why it took so long, but at least we’ll get some new features. Here’s a quick look for those that haven’t already seen them.

Application switching allows you to quickly switch between your open Metro apps by sliding your finger across the left side of the screen, or moving your mouse to the corner. If you don’t like this behavior, it’s easy to disable.

Classic Shell is an open-source utility that brings classic Windows features to newer versions of Windows. It offers the most classic Start menu for Windows 8 yet, and it lets you avoid the ribbon with a Windows Explorer toolbar.

By default there is no way to easily access the old Control Panel in Windows 8, in order to get to it you have to go through the new Metro Control Panel or switch to Explorer. Here’s how to create your own tile for it.

The lock screen feature of Windows 8 is interesting, but it seems like something that makes more sense on a tablet PC. Thankfully it’s easy enough to disable if you’re using a desktop or laptop instead.

We are going to use a networked folder in for our article but you could always skip creating the network folder, and just use a USB drive. To use a USB drive you can just go to the setting for File History and turn it on, it should automatically find your USB and immediately start working.

We’ve covered a lot of tips, tricks, and tweaks for Windows 8, but there are still a few more. From bypassing the lock screen to instantly taking and saving screenshots, here are a few more hidden options and keyboard shortcuts.

You can even create pools of storage larger than the amount of physical storage space you have available. When the physical storage fills up, you can plug in another drive and take advantage of it with no additional configuration required. Storage Spaces is similar to RAID or LVM on Linux.

Windows 8 will ship with the Metro version of Internet Explorer as well as the normal desktop version. Unfortunately, the immersive version is the default web browser and you might not want that on a desktop or laptop.

The Windows 8 Start Screen certainly takes some getting use to, however, one of the things that I really miss about the Start Menu was how i was able to categorize my installed applications. While you cant create folders on the Start Screen, you can group your applications.

After using Windows 8 for a while, I’ve come to the conclusion that removing the Start button from the Taskbar was a huge mistake. Here’s how to make your own “Start” button that brings up the Metro Start screen—but doesn’t waste any memory at all.

The Task Manager in Windows 8 has been completely overhauled. It’s easier-to-use, slicker, and more feature-packed than ever. Windows 8 may be all about Metro, but the Task Manager and Windows Explorer are better than ever.

The Ribbon interface became a feature in the Microsoft Office suite as of version 2007. The Windows 8 Developer Preview introduced the Ribbon interface into Windows Explorer and it’s been improved in the Windows 8 Consumer Preview.

When running the latest version of Windows 8 in a virtual machine in VMware Workstation, the shared folders feature doesn’t work because you can’t install VMware Tools. So, how are you supposed to transfer files between your VM and your Windows 7 host?

The Windows 8 desktop looks just like Windows 7, with one exception — no Start button. Losing the Start button isn’t the end of the world — Windows 8 exposes all the familiar options in different ways.

GEEK TRIVIA

DID YOU KNOW?

It is possible to trademark colors; examples of trademarked colors include the medium robin egg blue used by Tiffany & Co., the orange used for the handles of Fiskars scissors, and the magenta used by T-Mobile.